A significant fossil find has been uncovered at a Suncor Energy mine, about 50 kilometres north of Fort McMurray.

Officials from the Royal Tyrell Museum have already been on the site documenting the find which suggests the bones could belong to an ankylosaur, and date back about 110 million years.

To put it in perspective, the age of the dinosaurs from Dinosaur Provincial Park are about 75 million years old, pointed out Leanna Mohan of the museum.

The best known of the armoured dinosaurs, ankylosaurus was the last and largest of the ankylosaurids. Its tough skin was covered with bony plates, and it could swing its formidably clubbed tail to render a predator lame. This dinosaur - roaming the earth in the late cretaceous period - is known from fossils found in Montana and Alberta.

According to Mohan, the discovery is a significant find because the almost whole fossil has been "preserved very well."

Museum experts flew up to the site Tuesday night to verify the find made Monday in an overburden area of the mine where work has been temporarily suspended until the fossil is removed.

"They thought it was a marine reptile which is what is normally found in the oilsands and it turns out it's an actual dinosaur," she added.

She speculated that the armoured dinosaur could have been swept out to sea and then sunk to the bottom where it was preserved.

It was a shovel operator who made the discovery after noticing "something different in the wall that he was digging at with the shovel," explained Suncor spokeswoman Lanette Lundquist. "This was really like finding a needle in a haystack."

Saying it was "really great" the operator immediately stopped work and brought his supervisor in, she added they both realized they needed to call in someone with more expertise after examining the area, hence the call to the Suncor staff geologist who also agreed they should call the Tyrell after viewing the discovery.

"They took some initial photos and information, and then forwarded it down to Tyrell and they thought it was significant enough they needed to get somebody up here the next day," said Lundquist.

"The scientists were very excited to discover that this was, in fact, a dinosaur," added Mohan. "It's unexpected to find a dinosaur in this location because the formation was laid down in the sea and dinosaurs are land animals. As well, ankylosaurs are rare, so it looks like a great find."

She noted that finds in Fort McMurray are fairly regular, but are mostly invertebrates such as clams and ammonites. Occasionally there have been rare skeletons of marine reptiles like ichthyosaurs and plesiosaurs, the initial assumption for the latest find.

Museum personnel will be returning to Suncor next week to supervise the excavation.

"They're going to work with Suncor to get it out of the ground safely and transport it back here," said Mohan.

The last giant reptile that was found here was an ichthyosaur about 10 years ago. Though there may be some suspicion that more fossils are actually found in the oilsands than operators report, Mohan points out "we seem to get so many calls that I would say that really everyone in the industry works really hard to follow the legislature and stop what they're doing and phone."

Lundquist said Suncor really commends its employees for following the work practice that is in place.

"We have a work practice for mines, what employees are supposed to do when there's a potential fossil discovery and they really followed it to a T," she added.

"They know the potential always exists for these kinds of discoveries so we train them to look for them and we're so happy they followed the right practice."